就像大多数项目前往华盛顿特区2011年太阳能十项全能运动一样，普渡大学的INhomeis designed to address regional climate conditions and cultural expectations. Purdue is located in West Lafayette, Indiana, in the west-central part of the state, where traditional-looking suburban homes with attached garages find favor among home buyers. “There’s a lot of snow up in Indiana right now,” Team Purdue’s project manager,Kevin Rodgers, toldFine Homesbuilding一月份的贾斯汀·芬克（Justin Fink）during an interview at the International Builders’ Show. “I would love to have an attached garage.” In addition to the nod to tradition, an attached garage (which, under competition rules, doesn’t count as conditioned space), and the Indiana-referenced name of the project, IN Home’s other concession to regional preference is that the building – in contrast to many other Solar Decathlon houses – is relatively deep rather than long and narrow. The aim was to make the home’s 984 sq. ft. of interior seem as spacious as possible, and to exploit the roomy feeling created by the building’s open floor design and its vaulted ceiling, with operable clerestory windows, over the living room and kitchen areas. Two bedrooms make up the bulk of the private area, and there is a centrally located bathroom connected to the home’s “wet core” of plumbing fixtures.

From the Hoosier state to the mallRodgers does note that, as appealing as it might be to its occupants, the depth of the building does increase the challenges the team will face when it comes time to pack and ship the structure to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The building breaks up into four somewhat bulky shipping components: one for the living room, one for the kitchen and bathroom areas (including the wet core), one for the two bedrooms, and one for the garage. “It’s tougher to transport,” Rodgers says, “but I think it’s better for livability.” Team Purdue’s path to the Solar Decathlon began in mid-2009, when students in the school’s Mechanical Engineering Technology department began researching the Department of Energy’s competition requirements. By fall 2009, the university had created an independent study course whose students were charged with developing a Solar Decathlon proposal. Their success at that task has helped makeTeam Purdue从印第安纳州获得比赛资格的第一支球队，显然，在六个月内展示了Rodgers所说的内容将是一个非常舒适的零净能量住宅，使其在六个月内带到了比赛中。

Leaning hard on PVInhome将完全依靠被动特征和光伏的能量需求。源自前面的8千瓦阵列的功率，朝南的屋顶将补充一个较小，陡峭的倾斜阵列的双面光伏面板，安装在后排屋顶上的反射表面上。由威斯康星州沃索（Wausau）的Kolbe＆Kolbe Millwork制造的三层玻璃窗户将在整个过程中使用，太阳能获得的系数因方向而变化。该房屋将配备能量恢复呼吸机。在温和的天气中，可以打开室内窗户以增加通风，并且将安装在房屋前面大窗户附近的格子悬垂，旨在在夏季的几个月内遮挡它们。罗杰斯（Rodgers）告诉GBA，Inhome的外壳将由隔热板的结构隔热面板构成，可在外墙上的R-24和屋顶上的R-50构建。这些面板由位于印第安纳州摩尔斯维尔的Thermocore制造。Rodgers补充说，该项目的气密目标是每小时1个空气变化，在50 pascals压力差。一旦太阳能十项全能结束了，Inhome将被运回西拉斐特，尽管它的未来仍在解决。罗杰斯说：“我们根本不会废除房子。” “We’re looking at a few organizations, possibly donating the home. But the goal is to look at it long term, see how we did with the design and performance, and wrap it up with some master’s theses and dissertations.”